Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The Directorate of Nationality, Civil Registry, Passports and Immigration has revealed that 79 per cent of the Ugandan nationals registered have no valid immigration documents.
This is according to the recent foreign national data registration exercise conducted in Juba.
They agreed to collect all data of all foreign nationals living in South Sudan, documenting their nationality, sex, age group, and purpose of stay.
In a presentation made by Capt. Wani Francis Lasu on behalf of Lt Gen. Atem Marol Biar, the Director-General of Directorate of Nationality, Civil Registry, passports and migration, the researchers discovered a mixed migration in the country.
The migrations were recorded during the recent foreign nationals’ registration exercise conducted in Juba.
“We have [noted that] 79 per cent of the Ugandan nationals registered during the six-month exercise have no valid immigration documents. That is to say, they do not have passports. They do not have travel documents or even visas,” Lasu said
He said most Ugandans who entered the country came using a three-month visa which means that when the visa expires, the travel document also expires.
“What is needed from these people (Ugandans) who want to extend their stay in South Sudan is that we request them to go to the embassy of Uganda so that they can be issued with another document, which is called the certificate of origin from their embassy so that they can renew their document in the migration office,” Capt. Lasu explained
However, he said most of them have spent about two years in the country without any valid documents.
“About 7 per cent have valid passports with expired visas, which means the total number of Ugandans who are leaving the country irregularly is 86 per cent; they don’t have valid immigration documents, “he said.
“We only have 14 per cent of them who have valid passports and visas, and most of these people are running companies, and they are working with many NGOs in the country,” Capt Lasu stated.
According to him, 7 per cent of Ugandans who do not have valid visas went to immigration offices and were able to legalise their stay in the country.
The officer reiterated that a few of them out of the 79 per cent who were sent to the embassy to process their travel documents which he said the migration office has managed to give them visas.
“We are still comparing with the data of those who were given the chance to go to their embassy and had been given travel documents. The migration is still working on the differences,” he stated.
Demographics
According to the finding from the migration department, most of the Ugandans who are under the age of 45 years are market vendors, mainly based in Gumbo-Sherikat, Konyo Konyo, and Jebel markets.
However, the report also established that 61 per cent of Eritreans do not have valid travel documents and visas.
“This means they are regular in the country; they are driving most of the water tanks within the town, and they don’t have any travel documents,” Capt. Lasu said.
The migration realities have been recorded during the foreign national registration exercises only in Juba.
During the presentation, Lasu clarified that the directorate was implementing the East African Community common market protocol (EAC) on the freedom of movement and the rights of residence.
In this arrangement, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and Egypt get free visas to South Sudan.
Lasu said that although the declaration of the waiver visa fees to EAC citizens was amended by the South Sudanese government, the department for immigration had designed a free visa to be given to foreign nationals from the EAC.
“But this is only from the day, the visa was given free to Ugandans. Up to today, we have been able to only record 17 Ugandans who came to the immigration head quotes to issue the free visa,” he explained.
Lasu said that before the visa was made free, there were more than 800 entries noted per month, but now that the visa is free, only 17 Ugandans showed up in six months.
The Kenyans who were recorded were 73, Tanzanians (31) and Egyptians (362).
“We don’t have any recorded cases of Rwandans and Burundians,” the report
On the UN visas, the immigration office has managed to record a total of 15,867 exemptions from January 1 up to December 31, 2021.
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